You are happy

The title of one of my favourite poems, and favourite books of poems, by Margaret Atwood. (Side note: I discovered Atwood the poet in the late 1960s or early ’70s. I was excited she was a visiting professor at York University when I was there. I did not think of her as a fiction writer, but as a poet, and still do. I have many of her books of poetry, but have never gotten past chapter 1 of any of her novels.)

In The Toronto Star on Sunday there’s an interesting article about how happiness is about small things, and often not what we expect. After decades of wanting to be happy, I’ve pretty much come around to the view that you’re about as happy as you want to be. Professor Gilbert has a subtler position, but it’s pretty close.

(Even though we take the Star I missed this, and found it through Arts & Letters Daily.)